Thanks to Professor Eliza Rodriguez Y Gibson who pointed my now-scalded eyes, my scarred Mexican-American soul, to this fantabulous atrocity!
Haute couture non-mexican “cholos”!!!! Holy Baudrillard meets Eddie J. Olmos’s Pachuco — who would be rolling over in his grave if he weren’t still thriving in Hollywood!
Ack! Agggggggghhhhhhhh!!!
Allow me to quote from the photo-notice from Women’s Wear Daily, aka WWD (screencap below), the bible of fashion:
Josh Willis and Anthony de Padovane. Second/Layer mixes influences from cholos, surfers, skaters, pachucos and Giorgio Armani to create a relaxed yet elevated style.
Check out the entire new line and dress like your favorite barrio cholo here: https://shop.secondlayer.us
$300 for the ensembles — it’s not your usual fee for donning authentic barrio cholo garb, but in the age of Donald Trump and the Alt-Right, maybe haute couture outlets want to cash in on the very endangered species they dream of eliminating.
But no worry fans — real Cholos (and even their cool Japanese devotees) are here to stay! Where Japan revels in a cultural counter-culture that embraces the Cholo way of being, what Heidegger called Dasein, Second/Layer is more like a mercenary primitive mockery.
Holy Pachuco! This post first appeared on my Tex[t]-Mex blog.
- William Nericcio is the author of numerous peer-reviewed articles in journals including Camera Obscura, Americas Review, Spring, the Iowa Journal of Cultural Studies, and Mosaic. In 2007, The University of Texas Press published his American Library Association award-winning cultural studies volume Tex[t]-Mex: Seductive Hallucinations of the “Mexican” in America. His next book, Eyegiene: Permutations of Subjectivity in the Televisual Age of Sex and Race is presently in development. He is also the author of two edited collections (Homer from Salinas: John Steinbeck’s Enduring Voice for California and The Hurt Business: Oliver Mayer’s Early Works [+] PLUS) for San Diego State University Press. Most recently, he assisted philosopher Mark Richard Wheeler with his critical anthology, 150 Years of Evolution: Darwin’s Impact on Contemporary Thought and Culture for SDSU Press and helped edit and design Secession, with Amy Sara Carroll, with Hyperbole Books.
- More POCHISMO from Memo Nericcio is here